My Vision for the Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church (my church, your church, our church) of the future - - what will it be? What should it be? What would we want it to be? What is it likely to be?

If you could make one wish, one recommendation for change within this church, which many callhome, what would that one wish be? Would it focus on doctrines, on church organization or structure, on questions of authority, on policies voted by the General Conference in session, or . . . .? Would the change sought be affected if one were to use a different method of understanding Scripture, a different hermeneutic? Would the change you'd wish for be a movement backward toward a more traditional Adventist Church or a movement forward toward an Adventist Church still developing?

Last fall I received an audio cassette recording of a presentation by Dr. Des Ford at the Castle Hill SDA Church in Australia on September 6, 1997. Immediately after listening to that tape, contact was made with Dr. Ford, requesting that a similar presentation be made in San Diego.

Dr. Desmond Ford has put some of the above quest ions in context when he observes:

"Adventism arose in the year (1844) when the first telegraphic communication signaled the beginning of the disintegration of time and space. It had a providential purpose and was entrusted with important truths for the church and the world - - but like everything human it was not given the gift of infallibility. The last one and half centuries have seen significant changes in Adventist theology andthe end is not yet! [EMPHASIS SUPPLIED]

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

The July 18 San Diego Adventist Forum meeting will mark the seventh time that Dr. Desmond Ford has shared his insights with this Chapter. (If"seven"is the perfect number, perhaps this upcoming meeting may have something special to challenge our thinking!) Dr. Ford, as most readers may be aware, is the president of Good News Unlimited which, since 1980, has presented the gospel over radio, television, seminars, and by a magazine which has readers in eighty countries. Born in Queensland, Australia, Des accepted the SDA message in 1945 and thereafter served as a colporteur, pastor, and evangelist. From 1961 until just prior to Glacier View, he chaired the theology department at Avondale College. He has authored twenty books , several of which have been printed by SDA presses.